Tacoma Hotel Battle May Foreshadow What Happens with Headquarters Hotel

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IF WE BUILD IT: Metro says a new Hyatt hotel will enliven the Oregon Convention Center. - IMAGE: Ankrom Moisan Architects/Mortenson Development

The legal fate of the long-planned headquarters hotelslated for the Oregon Convention Center is currently in the hands of the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Last month, opponents of the proposed $200 million Hyatt Hotel at the convention center, a group called the Coalition for Fair Budget Priorities, appealed a Multnomah County Court judge's opinion that blocked opponents from challenging the project on the May ballot. That group, backed by Portland hotelier Gordon Sondland, objects to the $80 million taxpayer subsidy proposed for the Hyatt.

Last week, the Tacoma News Tribunereported that another Sondland company is nearing the end of a five-year battle over hotel development on the Tacoma waterfront.

"The Tacoma City Council will consider a deal next week that
could end a four-year-long legal and political fight over construction
of a 104-room hotel on downtown Tacoma’s Thea Foss Waterway.

Under the deal, the city would sell two parking lots to the
owner of the Hotel Murano for $1.25 million – about one-third of the
current assessed value – in exchange for it agreeing to stop suing over a
competitor’s attempt to build a hotel on the Foss, and not to sue over
the city’s attempt to develop a third site near the convention center," the News Tribune wrote.

"If the council approves the proposal on Tuesday, it could
finally open the door to construction of the first of two hotels planned
for the waterway site between the Esplanade Condominiums and Thea’s
Landing."